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This was my first touch screen, after a couple of weeks of getting used to it I foubd this phone top be great for my needs, calls, texts, odd photo, internet.The only bad thing (like so many phones now), Don't drop it, mine fell out my pocket indoors, and smashed...was quoted £260 to replace!!!! My old swivel F120 Sasung, was dropped outside on concrete/pavement, indoors, it took knocks/bangs daily...yet still in one piece. screen never broke.My thoughts... they put these easy to break screens in knowing we will all need replacements so we spend more money, as its not like we buy a new style phone each year as we did

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For the phone that does everything, try a different one

I got the Samsung Galaxy Ace on contract and initially was really excited, but then the cracks started to show.The ease of use is great and the size of screen is fab, but after a few weeks I noticed the bad side. The battery life is terrible if you use apps a lot, I found my journey to and from work would drain the battery. The memory is not as roomy as other phones. At least once a month, I have to empty my messages as if I don't I get an alert telling me there is no room left so I don't get new texts from anyone, which is not fantastic when you have to leave your phone on silent at work and you have kids at home.It also has a weak 3G connection. Unless WiFi is available to you, you probably won't even get Google up to search.The screen sensitivity doesn't last long. If you're heavy handed stay well clear, after a time you end up having to jab at the screen to get what you want as the touch screen simply sits in limbo (sometimes 5 or 6 jabs).If you want a simple phone for ringing and the odd game then fine, but if you want a phone that offers the very best, try a different one. I was really disappointed as other Samsung phones I've had really exceeded my expectations.

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Does the basics for a smart phone but otherwise slow and frustrating

I had a blackberry torch for two years and when it broke, I was given this phone as a replacement by my sister. I was not eligible for an upgrade with my carrier and I could not afford to buy a new phone, so in that sense, it saved me a lot.

The phone is easy enough to use. At first glance, it seems like a good phone. However, once you start using it and downloading apps, the reality that it is not as advanced as the other smart phones soon kicks in. The first thing I did was to download my social media apps which I use for business promotion. It worked OK at first, albeit slowly. Very soon however, I started getting an error message on the phone saying that I was running out of memory. I soon realised that every time this happened, I had to clear the data in each of the apps which used the most amount of memory. This would happen three or four times a day and would significantly slow down the phone, making sending basic text messages and phone calls difficult. I can not tell you the amount of phone calls I missed because of this. I ended up deleting all of my social media apps from the phone. This seemed to help, but was not ideal.

The phone is starting to slow down again and I still get the error message every few days- despite the fact that I have a large SD card in the phone on which my photos and apps are stored. Sometimes I go to write text messages and the words will not type. i have to restart the text message before I can write the message. It was new when it was given to me, so there is no reason for these problems. I have since found out that there are a number of people who experience the same thing. My mother has this phone as her back up phone. She only uses it to play music. If she tries to use it for any other purpose, she has the same problems- including freezing and the phone cutting off and turning itself off at random. For this reason, I would not recommend this phone at all. I am very much looking forward to being eligible for an upgrade with my carrier, at which point, I will gladly renew my contract so that I can get an Iphone.

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Good Value but sometimes a Challenge

I am going to upgrade my phone after just over a year. The phone I am going to replace is the Samsung Galaxy Ace. I like the Samsung phones better than the Iphone and think they are great value for money. I know they are not as robust and the touch screen, especially the keypad is not as good as the Iphone but I find them much easier to use.It is really easy to re-arrange the home screen by pressing and dragging the icons around. I am not always very techno-savvy but I find the Galaxy Ace very easy to add and remove applications. I have put an app on to monitor the directories which is better than the pre-installed on because it draws attention to any over large files and helps utilize memory space. I soon used up the 2GB SD card and the 200MB of Ram and I do need to keep an eye on memory usage. The upload to the internet can be challenging especially for text files and I need to install another app for that. The phone just looked in the gallery, music and video directories and I could not find how to make it look in the download directory.The internet can be slow and at times crashed but I am not sure whether this is the three network or the phone.Another disadvantage is the screen resolution which can be a bit fuzzy and difficult to see in daylight.But as I say it is good value for money, lightweight and a good size to carry around. It is very easy to use and I will be looking at other Samsung phones

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Basic smartphone, probably wouldn't appeal to app users

I finally decided to treat myself to a new phone as I usually get my Husband's hand-me-downs and the Samsung Galaxy S I was using was a bit battered and didn't hold a charge very well.

I chose this phone for a number of reasons. I have always preferred Samsung phones, it was on a great contract offer and had a 5mp camera. I tend to use my phone as camera almost as much as a phone so this was a deciding factor for me. It also had Android 2.3 so I would be able to download games and apps to fill in time on the commute to work.

However when the camera function is set to 5mp, you are unable to use the zoom feature, something I have never experienced with Samsung camera phones before. You can decrease to less mps in order to zoom but the photo isn't as clear. I've found this a really disappointing disadvantage. It does however have a great flash function and takes clear photos at 5mp setting.

The phone is also not compatible with some popular games despite the Android platform. Whilst you can download and play angry birds, though a little jumpy at times, it is not compatible with popular games that can be played on facebook such as Candy Crush.

My phone is still quite new but it does hold charge very well and only needs charging every two days. It gives you plenty of warning when it needs charging too.

The screen size is more than adequate for using the kindle app. The internal memory is quite small but using a SD card get around that.

It may be because I'm used to Samsung phones but it very easy to use and find your way around. I have set up a different ringtone for each contact who frequently calls and profile pics for them. Texting has the option of simple or predictive text. I do find though I need to turn the phone landscape as the virtual keys are quite small for my chubby fingers otherwise.

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I wouldn't recommend this phone

When my Samsung Galaxy Ace arrived, I was thrilled. Only because of the colour....purple!! I never spend long choosing new phones (I dislike the process of swapping immensely), I always think about what I would have liked in a phone AFTER I have had a new one! I chose this one, because it seemed to be the follow on from my previous phone.

It connected to the internet easily. The camera is just about adequate. It looks ace. It charges quickly. It started off being an absolute whizz, but as time goes on, I feel it is slowing down. I can see it going like my last phone, i.e. one day it will take so long to do something, it'll never actually happen!

When using it in the sunshine, it is virtually impossible to see the screen. Sometimes it shows me a symbol suggesting there has been a missed call, but on checking, there is no missed call. When writing text messages, the phone automatically changes the word you have written, for a more popular word. So even when spelling correctly, you are likely to send random messages to friends, because the phone has decided, on your behalf, that that isn't what you meant! Sooooo annoying!

On the whole, a functional but not amazing piece of equipment.

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Worth the money but not very good

I bought this phone after long deliberation on pay as you go after i owned the HTC Desire. I managed to get the mobile on EE for 120 pounds and i thought this was great value. The mobile is quite small but sleek and stylish. The 5 megapixel camera is very good and includes a flashing camera which is a useful addition for taking pictures in low light and when its dark. The mobile runs on Android Android OS, v2.3 (Gingerbread) and you can download applications from the Google Play Store which is extremely useful.

The problems you have to consider when buying this mobile is that the internal storage space is small only 156 mb which is not ideal if you want to download a lot of applications from the Google Play Store. The battery life is ok for a smartphone but is quite disappointing, i have to charge it every night. Another problem i have faced with this mobile is that it freezes quite a lot and is slow to open to open messages or view pictures. The mobile also force closes applications and i have had to re install many applications to get them to work again which is very frustrating.

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A bargain smart phone that is nice and compact with great performance and looks

This is my first smartphone, I bought this as my camera stopped working and my old mobile (Nokia) was 5 years old- so the 5 meg camera in this was the starting point for choosing it.

It takes good clear pics, apps are easy to download from Google play to have fun or improve the pics or any other function. There is touch icon on screen to take the picture, you swap to film mode ( 720 ) by touching an icon on the bottom right of the screen and it's very easy to use. The pictures all go into your gallery, which is accessed by tapping an icon on the main menu.

Big plus points are the smooth swiping motion of the touch screen - Also the voice command actually works ! You can use it to dictate notes / messages etc - (if you don't mind people hearing what you are saying ) I've switched to the lite tariff on pay as you go at 8 p per call as I don't make many calls.

Its compact size just under 4 inches, and sleek look with tough 'gorilla glass' make it more or less the perfect mobile for me. The battery lasts me about 4 or 5 days watching TV on wi fi at home, downloading apps listening to the radio etc. It starts up pretty fast too, less than 20 seconds.

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Here's hoping I can get a replacement that at least leaves my phone book alone!

I deliberated long and hard on what my recent choice of phone and contract would be. I had previously had an awful phone as part of a contract deal from Orange that broke long before the contract ended (but slightly after the warranty expired). I saw out the end of my contract using a cheap Samsung Tocco handset that I purchased in store from Tesco for about £40, and while I wasn't able to get online with that (I should have been able, but I wasn't), at least I was to get something out of the £25 per month I still had to pay Orange for almost a year.

With that in mind, I decided this time round to take up the Tesco sim-only deal for £7.50 per month and buy a handset separately. I get MORE minutes, texts and data allowance with this plan than I did with my previous £25 plan from Orange.

To go with my new sim, I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Ace, also from Tesco. It set me back about £90 and offered me everything I wanted from a phone. The more modern, expensive releases from Samsung did appeal to me, especially the SIII mini, but I just couldn't justify spending over the £100 mark on handset.

In theory this phone should be amazing, and in some instances it even is. But the major fault I need to make you aware of is that this phone randomly changes your settings and even deletes entries from your phone book!! Initially I thought it was just me, but my friend had similar problems with her handset when she had this phone too. When the phone is turned off, or the battery runs down, and you turn it back on after charging it up - it changes some of the settings. I got the fright of my life the first time it happened and this great, loud, urgent ring tone suddenly beeped behind me. It was the phone alerting me that I'd received a text message, using an extremely brash tone in place of the soft one I'm accustomed to. What's really confusing about this is that when you go in and check your settings - they are exactly as you left them. Just to further confuse and disorientate me, there are times when I get a few normal notifications through after turning this back on before a random one to make me jump.

Deleting half my contacts is something only I seem to have been unlucky enough to have to deal with. I am so glad I wrote out my contact list onto a spreadsheet when I changed phones! However this has proven to be extremely inconvenient on a few occasions, not least when I've been out and gone to ring someone only to find their number is no longer in my contacts list. I have had to put my contacts back into my phone at least seven times in the two months that I've had this phone, and as soon as I can find what I did with my receipt, I'll be asking for a replacement handset under warranty! What really annoys me about this situation is that I have allegedly (according to the phone) stored my contacts onto the sim card rather than the phone's internal memory.

If it wasn't for these painful glitches this is an otherwise really good phone. The screen is clear and responsive, the android operating system runs smoothly with google play, supporting most popular apps like facebook and angry birds and kindle. The volume goes up rather loud and you can play mp3s on this phone that you have downloaded or transferred over via USB (there's a lead included).

The camera quality is reasonable, especially if you remember to turn the flash on! This is only possible when there is sufficient battery on here though, and that isn't all that often unless you remember to charge this phone at least every other day. 5mp isn't going to win you any photography awards even with the flash on, but it's sufficient for grabbing a cute snap of the kids playing outside to upload onto facebook or set as your wallpaper.

The internet connection is pretty good and reliable on this phone, and I like that the phone automatically uses my wi-fi when I'm at home. It will let me know if it picks up an open wi-fi network if I'm out and about and trying to log on too, so I have the option of using that instead of my mobile data allowance.

I also like that this phone is a slightly nicer size than some of the more recent Samsung releases. It is quite wide and long, but it's also fairly slim and comfortable to hold and use. The advantage to being a bit wider than some other phones is of course the extra screen size.

It's a shame I've got the glitches that I have to be honest, as this is an otherwise good budget smartphone!

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Just ok

As a lover of all things Samsung when looking for a new phone once my previous contract was finished I originally decided I was going to purchase a Galaxy S2, however after some research I discovered the Galaxy Ace which seemed quite similar to the S2 only for a cheaper price. So I purchased the Galaxy Ace.

I was very pleased with the deal I got from Carphone Warehouse especially as I got a free Samsung tablet with my phone. The phone itself comes in a very small box which includes the phone, the battery which is packaged seperately, the phone charger, ear phones, instruction Manual, USB cable, an extra back which is white and a memory card.

The phone contains all the features you will have come to expect in a smart phone including a calendar which allows you to add events and reminders. You can set alarms for this to alert you of any reminders which I liked as I would often use this for my previous phone due to my terrible memory however I have tried this twice on the Galaxy Ace and for some reason it doesn't alert me of reminders which I'm disappointed by. There is also an alarm clock which is extremely loud so excellent for waking you up in the morning. You can also create memos however I have never used this so I can't comment on this.

One of the many criticisms I have of this phone is its internal memory. I was originally a little confused when I found a memory card in the box as I usually don't get one with the phone. However considering that When using the camera not even one photograph can be saved without inserting the memory card I now understand the decision to include it.

The camera is excellent. Photos are very clear and the camera is very easy to use. Once the photo has been taken it automatically saves to the gallery however it doesn't show you the picture once it has been taken.

One of the main features I use on any phone is the music player as I often like to listen to music through earphones. The music system is fairly standard and sound quality is excellent. Like with most phones you can carry out other functions on the phone whilst listening to music such as testing and browsing the Internet. Songs can be changed easily by dragging your finger downwards from the top of the screen showing the task bar. The volume can be changed using the buttons at the side. I also like that the earphone fitting fits most standard headphones so if you lose the earphones that came with the phone you don't need to specifically purchase Samsung ones.

I am currently trying to get my phone replaced or repaired as I have been having problems making phone calls. On many occasions my phone will not allow me to make phone calls or cuts me off when I'm on the phone.

Other negatives I have noticed with this phone is a slow processor and poor battery life. I very rarely go a day without having to charge my phone.

Overall I am not overly impressed with this phone however it does have many positives.

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A great low costing quality Samsung

I myself own a Samsung Galaxy S2 but my partner had my old HTC Wildfire S which was almost a snail with the battery capacity to possibly just hold a ten minute conversation; this was just beyond inconvenient and not suitable when travelling to and from work is needed. I began hunting high and low for a phone, as a student this christmas I couldn't even afford the S2 second hand so this phone was out of the question. Then I saw the Ace, after reading positive reviews and mark ups I thought this would be perfect for her with wi-fi, bluetooth, social media capacity, google search, mp3 download/ play etc and a 5meg camera plus a price to suit.

Samsung to me are a greatly trusted brand and I love them so much I think they should sponsor me. Anyway, Samsung was founded in 1938 focussing upon textiles, security and retail not branching into electronics until 1960. Fast forward to 2012 where Samsung became the worlds largest mobile phone maker overtaking Nokia who had held pole position from 1998.

Intially I had to make the decision of where to buy the phone as I had a budget of £100 maximum. I looked at the O2 site; we have been O2 customers for about 4 years and have no plans on moving as we get a good deal on Pay as You Go and the signal is decent in our area. The christmas deal with O2 was 109.99 plus a requirement to top up by £10 so this brought it to £119.99, a little over budget. I then turned my search to Ebay but looked for the new/ barely used as it was to be a gift and I didn't want it looking like I'd thrown it around on the lead up to the big day. I started watching a few in all the colours (white, black and purple), my partners favourite colour is purple so I was hoping for one of these. After about four failed auctions I was getting disappointed and frustrated but then my luck changed. A purple Ace on O2 with 2 spare covers and memory card in box, I won for £89.95 so the excitement began!

The package arrived which was much smaller than expected but nowadays a lot of the phone boxes are shrinking, this is good as it does not take up much room to store. The box is green and black with the phone image on the front and specifications written on the sides. The box provided a safe housing for the phone unit, battery, charger which looks slim line like a travel edition, 2GB memory card and holder, plus a spare white and black back cover. As I bought this from Ebay I got an extra flip case and 2 silicone cases with it, I was suprised as I only saw two covers on the photo. I find the 2GB memory cards are a little small especially with such a low internal memory so I bought a 8GB card from Ebay.

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is 11.5 mm thick, 112.4mm high and 59.9mm wide with a 3.5" touch screen making this phone very pocket and bad friendly not stretching the hand to use plus weigh only 113g. The phone runs the Android OS system version 2.3.6 which is great for downloading apps with ease from the Google Play store built in.

The phone runs from a full touch bar device with one main button on the front and a switch off and on button the the side of the unit. The display is good quality for reading, displaying pictures, wathcing videos, playing games etc being a TFT and 480x320 resolution.

The battery I have found can last over 24 hours but does drain faster when I play games which I am a fan of. Apparently the capacity is 420 hours even whilst using 3G internet but I am yet to see this capacity.

The camera I have found to be of nice quality for such a low price phone, not up to the S2 standard but the 5mp with flash and 2x digital zoom is more than enough needed for casual use; there are a variety of options for anyone who is interested in grayscale etc but for us its just standard photos. The video recorder I find to be equally as good making videos of a quality suitable for our casual use filming the cat or days out.

The phone has the ability to download music from Amazon for nominal charges and store them in the files to be played like any other mp3 device, set as rings tones etc. We often bluetooth music across and the speakers are so loud it can even be played in the car through its own speaker! The normal headphone jack allows for any of your favourite headphones to be used with the phone.

The phone has the usual calendar, alarm, calculator and organiser features which my partner barely uses; we have never quite trusted a phone to wake us up in the morning! The bonus feature is the ability to open pdf files and adobee acrobat which are required when applying for certain jobs and looking at specifications.

Finally the apps, well without the memory card the phone would do nothing, but with it the possibilites are endless. There are many apps that still require work in the Android market and the odd thing is known to crash but my partner loves games like Cut the Rope and Darts which work smoothly with no glitches. Also the most popular Facebook and Twitter apps can often crash but that is due to connection issues from the actual programs and not the phone.

The phone uses GPS, wi-fi, bluetooth, Kies, HTML browser and has 3G capacity with network meaning that no matter where you are you can still keep in touch on the move.

Overall the phone is a little slow but then Im used to using the S2 which out strips this phone by far; but as phones costing £89.95 go this has to be the best. My partner loves the phone using is constantly for Facebook, the internet and texting which all work fab. Despite the slow nature I do recommend the phone for anyone with a low budget; 4 months and no issues yet.

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not worth the oney or hassle

Ok so after much debate my husband buys this phone in white. First couple weeks its the best phone ever for the price. It has everything you could want and need from an android smart phone, it has great camera with flash and zoom, wifi and gprs, google play with tonnes of apps and loads more. Untill one day my husband was playing a game and the phone switched itself off all of a sudden and he turned it back on and it was fine, over the days this got worse, the phone crashed, screen flickered and it kept switching off. After a few days of this he turned off phone and reset it to factory settings and it just got worse. He had 20 pictures on it and no apps atall and yet with the tonnes of built in memory and his added 2gb sd card it kept flashing up with not enough storage. He transfered all his pics to laptop and yet it still said this. He had this phone sent off and repaired twice and even replaced and yet the same problems came up. So what started off as a fantastic phone for its money was rubbish. Really not worth it atall.

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Not so Ace really!

Samsung Galaxy Ace GT5830

Back in August 2012 my old phone decided it was time for us to go our separate ways and died on me. The phone in question was my Samsung Tocco Lite, I had had the phone for around 2 and a half years and up until the day the touch screen stopped working I had had no problems and because of this I decided to have a Samsung phone again.

As my phone broke two days before I was due to fly home to Birmingham for my mums wedding I decided to wait and buy one while I was back over as at least I would be able to ask any questions and read any information I needed to know... I've lived in Poland for over a year and the language is still a mystery to me no matter how hard I try! So upon my arrival back in the UK I headed to my local O2 and Orange shops to do a bit of price comparisons on the Samsung Galaxy Ace, I knew I wanted this phone as I had read a lot of positive reviews on both Ciao and Dooyoo so now I just needed to find it at a suitable price. I wasn't too bothered about which network provider I had as I was intending on having the phone unlocked to be compatible with my Polish SIM card.

Orange or O2?At the time I was making my purchase the Orange shop in Sutton Coldfield were selling the black version of the Galaxy Ace for £149 or the Galaxy Ace 2 for £189 where as in the O2 shop I was given a choice of the Galaxy Ace in Silver, Black, Blue, Pink or Purple for £119 or the Galaxy Ace 2 for £179. I think it is clear to say the Galaxy Ace in purple was the clear winner for me and I happily purchased my new phone along with few accessories including the much needed screen protector as there wasn't one included with the phone, well, not a plain one! I could have kept the one with the huge android logo on it but I decided against it.

In The BoxWhen I bought my phone it was in a much smaller box than I expected and this box contained the phone itself, one battery, 2 back covers for the phone, one purple and one black, a UK 3 pin wall charger, a 2GB micro SD memory card and an SD memory card adapter. Although I put the 2GB micro SD card on eBay as I already had an 8GB one I could use instead.

Operating SystemThe Samsung Galaxy Ace is an Android phone and while I'm not really into the tech side of things these days I can see from a quick check that the operating system is Android 2.3.6. Personally I have no idea what this means but I think it is OK and it seems to suit the apps which I want to use.

Touch Me!The Galaxy Ace is a Smartphone with a full touch screen. There is only one 'normal' button on the phone which is the home button, this is located at the bottom of the screen and if you press this button it will quit whatever you are doing and return you to your home screen. I find this to be quite handy if I am in a rush and want to quit things quickly before putting my phone in my pocket.

Call Me Maybe?Obviously the main purpose of a phone, no matter how many fancy apps we have, is to be able to make phone calls and making a phone call is really simple, you just need to tap the icon for your contacts, scroll and find the person you want to call and then choose call from the list of options which also include the option to email or send a text to your contact.

Answering a call isn't so easy, or at least to begin with it isn't so easy. When the phone has an incoming call you will have two options displayed on the screen along with the callers ID. There is a green phone and a red one, to answer the call you need to press your finger on the green phone and slide it across to the right and to reject the call choose the red one and slide it to the left. This sounds easy and I suppose it is really but I have found when I am in a hurry or searching my bag for my phone I often cut people off or answer the call without intending to.

On the front of the phone there is what looks like a camera, however this is actually the proximity sensors so the phone can detect how close to your ear it is and illuminate itself and activate the in call features when you move it away from you.

I find the reception quality of the phone to be OK most of the time, however there have been a couple of occasions where I have checked my phone as it was unusually quiet and when I looked there was a symbol which indicates no service or emergency calls only, this has happened both at home and out and about in places where I know that I usually have no problems, this is a rare occurrence though and until it happens regularly I'm not complaining... too much! I find that turning the phone on and off again seems to fix the problem. I have so far used this phone in various locations in the UK as well as here in Poland, Spain and Czech Republic all with no problems.

Text Me!Sending a text is also pretty easy once you are used to the touch screen, I found a little patience needed at times. There are a couple of input methods to typing a text, the one I find easiest is the QWERTY Keypad layout on the screen as I am so used to typing on my laptop that it is 2nd nature to use this style on my phone too although at times I do find that the parts to touch to get the letters are quite small and sometimes if I am trying to type one handed I often press the wrong letter, but I still prefer this over the traditional phone keypad style. There is also an option to use voice control to type your message where you simply need to speak to the phone and it will recognise the words and put them in a message. I have used this a few times but with my slight Birmingham accent I find that it doesn't always come up with the correct words.

Quite Alarming!The other area of the phone I use on a daily basis is the Alarms section. I have the alarm set on the loudest setting and this is plenty loud enough to wake me, especially when I choose the Rooster crowing to wake me up! There is certainly no ignoring this alarm and often the first words of the day are "I'm gonna kill the chicken". There is also the snooze option which will make the alarm sound every 10 minutes, or more frequently if you prefer.

Smile for the Camera... But not for the Video!The camera on the Galaxy Ace is actually really good; it can be set at 5 megapixels if required although I have mine set to 1.3 at the moment and this seems to be more than adequate for the amount I use it as I usually use my normal camera for my photos. The phone also has the possibility to record video with the camera, however recently the video doesn't seem to record for me unless I switch the phone off and on again which is really annoying as by the time I have done this the moment I wanted to record has often passed.

The camera has a lovely bright flash, it is possibly capable of blinding you if you look directly at it, it certainly causes those coloured dots in front of your eyes, not good for the person in the photo but it does make for a nice clear photo in the darker situations. The flash can also be used with the recording option, when the recording option works of course!

Apps, Apps and More Apps... Sort of!Apps... love them or hate them Android phones support the use of apps and the Galaxy Ace is indeed an Android phone. When I first got the phone the apps were one of the things I was rather excited about and spent the first few days downloading a large selection of apps, all of the free versions of course! Unfortunately the problem with this was that the internal memory of the phone is quite small and a lot of apps require the phones internal memory rather than the memory card and even those which can be saved on the memory card seem to save their data on the internal memory. Once the internal memory is low you will have a constant notification displayed on the phone to inform you of this. Failure to rectify the memory shortage will eventually result in not being able to update apps or even receive text messages as these are also sorted on the internal memory.

Another complaint I have in the apps department is that the phone comes with quite a few apps already built in and they cannot be deleted even if you never use them and I'm sure they would free up a lot of space if I could get rid of them! These include things like the Think Free Office which allows you to read documents in PDF or Word on your phone rather than your PC, I can see how this would be useful for a lot of people but for me it is pretty useless. Another one which annoys me is the Samsung Hub, O2 Priority and Social Hub apps, I have never used these and probably never will but yet I have to keep them as the options menu doesn't allow them to be deleted.

But, enough moaning about the apps, lets talk about the good apps which work with this phone. So, first of all we have the usual Facebook and Twitter apps, so far for me these seem to work pretty well although I have noticed Facebook seems to take up a lot of space on the internal memory.

Another favourite of mine is eBay and I find it really easy to list items from my phone and the eBay notifications to my phone are fab. The app I use more than anything is Whatsapp, for those of you who don't know, Whatsapp is a messaging app which allows you to message other Whatsapp users using the Wifi connection or your internet data allowance. I think this is fantastic as it is a great free way for me to keep in touch with my family and friends back home without having to pay for costly messages or log onto Facebook every 5 minutes.

In the past I have downloaded some games but they all seemed to take up a lot of my valuable internal memory space and I found I could only have one or two at a time and currently I don't have any.

Finally, one last bad points of apps, a lot of the apps seem to crash and quit a lot, I'm not sure if this is a problem with the apps themselves or a fault of the phone but I would lean more towards the phone as I often find I am scrolling through my contacts list and it will suddenly quit and return to my home screen, this is really frustrating and often makes me feel like screaming!

Wifi, GPS and Other InfoThe Galaxy Ace is Wifi compatible and for me this is my main form of connecting to the internet with this phone. To set up a wifi connection is simple, the wifi option can be found in the settings menu, the phone automatically scans for networks and you simply need to choose the one you want and after entering any security code the phone will connect and also remember the connection as well as automatically re-connect to it when you are within range.

The phone also has GPS which until recently I had left switched off, however I recently downloaded an app which works with the maps feature and therefore requires GPS to be switched on. The GPS isn't really that accurate in my experience and often shows me as being a couple of streets away from where I actually am.

Bluetooth is also a standard feature of the phone however I have only used it a couple of times. Those times I have used it I had no problems and it was probably the easiest feature of the phone!

Charging TimeThe battery life on this phone is also not so good, I use my phone almost constantly and as a result of this I have to charge the battery most nights which compared to my old Samsung is terrible, I can only think this high battery usage is due to the operating system and the wifi connection.

OverallWhen I first got this phone I loved it and was so excited to finally be joining the world of apps, however coming up to 6 months later and after reading a lot of positive things about this phone prior to buying it I feel that this phone is more of a disappointment than anything. I wont be buying a new phone just yet as I am determined to get my moneys worth from this one. Looks wise I think this phone is pretty good looking and I love the fact that I have the purple version.

Overall I will give the Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 out of 5 stars. It is suitable for the basic requirements of a phone, i.e. making calls and sending texts. It takes decent photos, although the video doesn't seem to work well on my handset. Most of the time it is reliable for connecting to the internet but its battery life, small internal memory and the occasions it crashes really let the phone down.

Thanks for reading :)

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In all not a bad smartphone, keeps you in contact and is more then just a phone

I have had this phone for about a year now and decided upon this one as there was a special offer at the time for this phone and a free Wii with a 18mth contract. I had previously had the HTC Magic. Today your phone is a mini PC where you can stay in touch, play games or search the web and with the Samsung Galaxy Ace all that is possible. It has a very handy note pad app built in which is very useful for taking notes, writing shopping list and generally reminding yourself of things that need to be done. I use this a lotIt has a 5mp camera which takes very good quality photos for a phone camera. There is also a video recorder option, very handy. It has a built in radio which is not too bad and you can also down load any other app required from the android play store if you want a better one. It has all the general apps built in that you require, calculator, alarm clock, maps etc. It is connected with your Gmail account so you can check your emails all the time. There are unfortunatly some downside to this particular phone for example you can download many apps from the play store however there are quite a few that for some reason need to be stored on the phones internal memory and not the SD card and the problem that I have found is that you run out of space quite quickly if you like to have facebook, newspapers, weather channels and some games you need to keep removing some to free up space. You have the option to use the phone as a reader but depending on the apps you already have there may not be the space left for the phone to hold books and the screen is not that big really.When searching the web for general things that do not have apps attached like the Dailymail newspaper or ebay then there is a problem that unlike some of the android phones and iphones out there you cannot tap the screen and the article fits to the screen to enable you to read with ease you would need to keep moving along to read the full article. I also found that when making a call or receiving a call on some occasions when you want to hang up the end call button has disappered and you are unable to end your call. It doesn't happen every time but occasionally this can be a bit annoying. I would say that generally this is a good phone but to keep in mind that there is not a lot of internal storage available so if you like to have loads of different apps especially the bigger ones or if you like to be able to search the web a lot and read articles that do not have a special mobile apps then this is possible not the phone for you. If your happy with a phone that can still do more then just make calls and not really into a lot of web searching or using it as a reader then this is a good and easy phone to use. I will look to upgrade when the time comes to one of the HTC versions but as my daughter like to play some games this can be kept as a very handy back up because it has the wi fi built in so we can use it off the home internet.

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Great phone

I love the look and feel of this phone. The touch screen is perfectly sensitive so you just flow through the screens without having to apply too much pressure. The textured back stops it from slipping out of your hands too. The applications are useful and well thought about. My main issue with it is the internal memory storage. There are certain applications like e-mail, facebook etc that have to be stored to the phones memory rather than the sd card, along with all the things that are on the phone from standard this leaves little room for applications you want on there and I am forever getting messages telling me my internal storage space is low, yet there is little I can do about that. Secondly you don't appear to be able to save a text to drafts so ou can go back and read the text you were replying to, if you don't add a recipient it will not allow you to save it. I find this frustrating as I have a friend who sends very long texts and I can never remember what she asks me whilst replying but I cannot go back to re-read the message once I have started another. But aside from those niggles I am very happy with this phone and I have had no problems with it like freezing which I have had with other phones.